1 January 2019: Welcome, New Year
Dear 2019, I hope you bring us everything good: a functioning government, a presidential resignation, and reasonable economic policies that either stave off an economic downturn or mitigate it. Is that too much to ask? Yes, I know it is.
(I do keep thinking, though, that Nature may act soon to permanently remove an overweight, 72-year-old man with a choleric temperament. Tsk, tsk, FanSee.)
Moving on. My plan for the first day of the year was to go see my sister Debbie in Barrington, NJ and order in Indian food for lunch. That didn't work out at all. First of all, my son John pointed out that the crowds that attended our annual Mummers Parade might make that difficult. I pooh-poohed his fears. The Mummers Parade's route doesn't come anywhere near here, I would take a Lyft to the PATCO's 8th Street station where I would catch the train, and I'd avoid the crowds. Then I woke up at 5:30, worrying, and couldn't get back to sleep, despite having had only four-and-a-half hours sleep. Being dropped off at 8th and Market at 11:00 a.m. might not be a problem, but coming home at 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. might be another story. I got up and stewed and stewed for a couple of hours...I hated to disappoint Debbie...then decided anything optional that bothered me that much wasn't worth doing. When I talked to Debbie, she volunteered that navigating through crowds might result in a bump and a fall. That happened to me recently on a crowded bridge in Venice.
I promised her I'd still have Indian food delivered; there are four Indian restaurants in Haddonfield, about four miles from Debbie's front door. I called around; none of them would deliver to Barrington. So I queried Google-the-All-Knowing for "restaurants in Barrington" and came up with a rag-tag list of about ten, most of which neither Debbie nor I would order from. (Last week we ordered pizza from Fat Louie's and it was fine, but I didn't want order pizza again so soon.) I ended up ordering sushi from a place neither of us have tried before, on the theory that what can go wrong with seaweed salad and a California roll. Then I took a nap. I haven't heard if it was edible; I'll talk to Deb tomorrow.
As for me, I had my usual breakfast and for dinner, I have Trader Joe's salmon burgers from my freezer and lettuce, tomatoes, and an excellent bread, also from the freezer.
I really really didn't feel like getting down on the floor to exercise today. Fortunately, right now there are lots of articles in the NYTimes and the Washington Post about sticking to your New Year's resolutions, and the NYTimes came through for me. Referencing James Clear's book, "Atomic Habits," their article said that the way to keep a resolution is to make it a habit, and the best way to form a habit it to repeat it. Easily said, difficult to do. So Mr. Clear says, start small.
So if you want to read a book a month, you read a page a day. If you want to play the piano, you sit at the bench and open your songbook. Although he admitted it might sound frivolous, Mr. Clear said mastering “the art of showing up” helps put a behavior on autopilot.... He shared the story of one man who drove to the gym every day, then exercised for a few minutes before going home. By performing that seemingly futile action for six weeks, Mr. Clear said the man slowly became “the type of person who works out every day.”
I figured that I could do one exercise today: my stretch. I lie down on my mat, on my back with my knees bent. I extend my arms straight out from my shoulders and turn the palms up. I lie there for five minutes. (I timed it on my phone.) I feel this stretch in my shoulders. It hurts, but in a good way.
Of course, getting down to the mat and getting up again means I'm doing three of my exercises, and today the hardest one was getting up again. I could have turned over on my mat and napped there instead of crawling into bed, and I'm sure that if I had, getting up would not have been so difficult. But I got up, and that felt good.
I worked on two of my To Do's but didn't complete either.
A. Call Peter, then book flights to and from North Carolina and Florida.
I did call Pete -- actually talked to his wife, Brenda -- and she's going to check with Pete to see if my dates work for them. She'll message me today; I'll wait until tomorrow to book the trip.
B. Research Debbie's questions on IRS.gov.
Printed out a couple of relevant pages today, but need much more detail. Debbie is going to set up a meeting with the woman that runs The Friends of Barrington Mews and the social worker giving said friend fits about non-compliance with IRS rules. A deadline will get me even more motivated.
Gentle reader, I am prolix, I know. Diarrhea of the fingers, that's my problem. FanSee
(I do keep thinking, though, that Nature may act soon to permanently remove an overweight, 72-year-old man with a choleric temperament. Tsk, tsk, FanSee.)
Moving on. My plan for the first day of the year was to go see my sister Debbie in Barrington, NJ and order in Indian food for lunch. That didn't work out at all. First of all, my son John pointed out that the crowds that attended our annual Mummers Parade might make that difficult. I pooh-poohed his fears. The Mummers Parade's route doesn't come anywhere near here, I would take a Lyft to the PATCO's 8th Street station where I would catch the train, and I'd avoid the crowds. Then I woke up at 5:30, worrying, and couldn't get back to sleep, despite having had only four-and-a-half hours sleep. Being dropped off at 8th and Market at 11:00 a.m. might not be a problem, but coming home at 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. might be another story. I got up and stewed and stewed for a couple of hours...I hated to disappoint Debbie...then decided anything optional that bothered me that much wasn't worth doing. When I talked to Debbie, she volunteered that navigating through crowds might result in a bump and a fall. That happened to me recently on a crowded bridge in Venice.
I promised her I'd still have Indian food delivered; there are four Indian restaurants in Haddonfield, about four miles from Debbie's front door. I called around; none of them would deliver to Barrington. So I queried Google-the-All-Knowing for "restaurants in Barrington" and came up with a rag-tag list of about ten, most of which neither Debbie nor I would order from. (Last week we ordered pizza from Fat Louie's and it was fine, but I didn't want order pizza again so soon.) I ended up ordering sushi from a place neither of us have tried before, on the theory that what can go wrong with seaweed salad and a California roll. Then I took a nap. I haven't heard if it was edible; I'll talk to Deb tomorrow.
As for me, I had my usual breakfast and for dinner, I have Trader Joe's salmon burgers from my freezer and lettuce, tomatoes, and an excellent bread, also from the freezer.
I really really didn't feel like getting down on the floor to exercise today. Fortunately, right now there are lots of articles in the NYTimes and the Washington Post about sticking to your New Year's resolutions, and the NYTimes came through for me. Referencing James Clear's book, "Atomic Habits," their article said that the way to keep a resolution is to make it a habit, and the best way to form a habit it to repeat it. Easily said, difficult to do. So Mr. Clear says, start small.
So if you want to read a book a month, you read a page a day. If you want to play the piano, you sit at the bench and open your songbook. Although he admitted it might sound frivolous, Mr. Clear said mastering “the art of showing up” helps put a behavior on autopilot.... He shared the story of one man who drove to the gym every day, then exercised for a few minutes before going home. By performing that seemingly futile action for six weeks, Mr. Clear said the man slowly became “the type of person who works out every day.”
I figured that I could do one exercise today: my stretch. I lie down on my mat, on my back with my knees bent. I extend my arms straight out from my shoulders and turn the palms up. I lie there for five minutes. (I timed it on my phone.) I feel this stretch in my shoulders. It hurts, but in a good way.
Of course, getting down to the mat and getting up again means I'm doing three of my exercises, and today the hardest one was getting up again. I could have turned over on my mat and napped there instead of crawling into bed, and I'm sure that if I had, getting up would not have been so difficult. But I got up, and that felt good.
I worked on two of my To Do's but didn't complete either.
A. Call Peter, then book flights to and from North Carolina and Florida.
I did call Pete -- actually talked to his wife, Brenda -- and she's going to check with Pete to see if my dates work for them. She'll message me today; I'll wait until tomorrow to book the trip.
B. Research Debbie's questions on IRS.gov.
Printed out a couple of relevant pages today, but need much more detail. Debbie is going to set up a meeting with the woman that runs The Friends of Barrington Mews and the social worker giving said friend fits about non-compliance with IRS rules. A deadline will get me even more motivated.
Gentle reader, I am prolix, I know. Diarrhea of the fingers, that's my problem. FanSee